6 Social Media Predictions for 2015

Now that we have the first month of 2015 under our belts, we can make some accurate social media predictions about what the year has in store for us. We’re going to have to deal with videos, dark social, and MySpace making a comeback?!Just kidding about that last one. So without further ado, here are 6 social media predictions for 2015!

Video becomes truly dominant.

This has been a long time coming, but video is really going to become the dominant form of content. It has already grown by leaps and bounds in 2014, and video’s natural advantages are going to continue to propel it to new heights in 2015. In fact we believe that we are going to be seeing a lot more regularly scheduled video segments carried out by users and brands alike.

The amount of clutter increases.

The sheer amount of content being shared via social media is going to hit a tipping point. This will make it more difficult for social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn to deliver valuable content instead of spam and noise. While some of the effort to access desired content will fall on user’s shoulders, some will also fall on the shoulders of these platforms to improve their algorithms and give a favorable position to organically successful content. This will be a difficult balancing act as networks also seek to pull more value from paid ads on their sites.

Slideshare grows as a great platform for businesses.

Slideshare is going to grow significantly as more and more professionals realize the potential it possesses as both a source of quick information they need and a potential source of leads and SEO value. Slideshare can boost a brand’s digital marketing presence using information they already put out there, just in a different form and for a different audience.

Paid ads develop as an important part of your strategy.

As social networks seek to further monetize and follow in Facebook’s footsteps, paid ads will start to show up in new places and with more frequency. Taking advantage of these ad formats will potentially be huge for the right brands.

More personal two way interaction will be demanded of brands.

Brands operating online will need to spend more time and resources treating social media like the two way conversation it is. This year will be less about getting the corporate message out to as many people as possible, and more about sharing a genuine experience with your brand’s stakeholders.

Dark social shrinks as we find new ways to track traffic.

Dark social refers to the sharing that occurs online that is untraceable via modern analytics packages. It can be links shares with friends in a message, email, or text message for example. It accounts for the vast majority of global shares, and has so far been difficult for brands to track. This puts a huge damper on any analytics report describing where a company’s traffic is originating. As time goes on someone is going to figure out how to track more and more dark social and they will brighten up analytics for all of us.